The Lambertville record. [volume] (Lambertville, N.J.) 1872-1968, 1887-05-25

ets-N anu az DClAlA3 GO
six miles apart, the rows of stone
piers stand perfect but disconnected, at
the present writing, with the causeways
grown over by grass, and the beautiful
Loudoun county Of Virginia is, in effect
and intercourse, removed from the popu-
lous county of Frederick in Maryland
and the railway upon the Maryland
shore, by inconvenience and time equal
to twenty miles.
Ferry scows are still maintained, no
better than existed 100 years ago, and
seeming by that interval to separate
both shores from the present busy day.
It may have been this carrying of his
mind back to the eighteenth century (which
caused Rolfe Stillson, the ferryman's
assistant, to lie awake one October night
ON the old Virginia pier, whittier he had
gone to be ready for the early morning
passengers, and say aloud to himself:
Il reckon thar amt wild yarmint left
now in neither county with powder and
shot, I've seen the beavers yer about
Goose creek, and sot traps for the wolf
and the bar. Pears like the country's
more lonesome than ever, becaze the
people amt much thicker; and they can't
git at each other as they used TO do,
when thar amt no BRIDGE
Rolfe was an old WAGNER, armorer,
canal lock keeper, lime burner, hod car
rier-whateyer would give his family
coffee and flour-and he had lived out
more than sixty years IN THESE regions,
since he was born at Harpers Ferry
in the palmy days when the American
nag ran to the masthead every morning
and was saluted by chorus OF small and
mighty hammers making muskets for the
conquest of the world.
Rolfe could not read, put ne mad no
modesty ON that account, while he could
listen and learn, and his head was full of
what the professors would now call folk.
lore, meaning, probably, poor folks
special sense-the sense Tor nature tine
tured by untroubling superstition.
Wise men do not believe In ghosts, yet
ny from them. Role beieved IN ghosts,
but thought they were MS friends
lie had never seen any EVIL done by
animals like the scenes IN the great civil
war-of friends riding at full gallop
through the country towns with reins
loose and pistols in both hands; OF human
bodies bursting in the roadways under the
hot sunshine, and robbers hiding at the
springs to harm the mountain girls.
Wearing an old castaway cloth cap, an
officers blue coat, patched in other colors,
high boots, soled and soled again, and
wooden shirt, stamped with the names OF
the Union candidates in some forgotten
campaign, Rolfe bore as careless heart
at sixty-four as any boy, and showed
profile to be envied by any actor
His chin and nose had something OF
the mastih and the eagle together; his
eyes were as clear In his profile as his
fine, uncultured forehead lie stood
straight as If he had been In the regular
army and he had never struck man IN
his life.
The highest notch OF his ambition was
to get some tobacco for his old pipe 1t
was golden lunch with him to ind a
steady job OF work at nfty cents DAY.
lie could smoke his pipe and carry the
bod to the stonemasons twelve hours In
twenty and then dance hundred
steps OF jig for tobacco enough to
smoke going home.
Middle-aged men called him daddy"
the boys called him Rolfe.
1t was long after midnight when Role
fastened his scow to the bank and
stretched himself upon the bridge abut-
ment under the bright stars and in the
soothing sound OF the eddies and rifles
OF the river beneath.
He saw as he turned from side to side
the rayine or slide on the Virginia shore,
down which wound the ferry road from
lonely upland OF woods and fieids and
on the opposite snore, wnich ne could
sight. above the lines OF standing piers,
were the little canal town near the rail-
road tunnels ana me paraiiel mountain
lines which seemed the cyciopean iortIh-
cations OF the high Oasoctn vaiiey,
riding through the moon-nred machine-
RES ana cansas-seeming sans Oh Inc nav